Electoral

Reprinted from the People's Weekly World

Huge crowds, unprecedented in U.S. history, gathered in Washington on Tuesday, to celebrate and welcome President Barack Obama to the White House. Pre-inaugural estimates of up to 3 million participants seemed on mark, with newspapers like the Washington Post calculating 2 million people on the Mall.

With many participants both with and without tickets unable to gain entry, the overall numbers are likely higher. “I had tickets and couldn’t get in,” said a New York City teacher whose story was echoed by many others.” We got here early but it was just too big.” Her family managed to watch President Obama’s speech at Union Station.

“You have to conceptualize this as a populist inauguration,” said political analyst, University of Maryland professor and long-time activist Ron Walters to the Washington Afro-American. “You have people coming here from all over the world; people coming from across the country – many bunking in with relatives – just because they want to be a part of history.”

As the millions gathered to observe the festivities, Wall Street stocks tumbled in the worst Inaugural Day plunge in a century, accenting the cloudy economic horizon and giving emphasis to President Obama's people-oriented themes. The stock market plunged over 332 points or 4 percent, wiping out January gains amid growing fears of bank instability.

The president’s speech seemed to anticipate these problems and was a continuation of themes struck during the presidential campaign. Obama said, “Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.”

Moments later, tracing the sacrifice of previous generations, he continued, “For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.”

Even the poet Elizabeth Alexander, says The New York Times, speaking after the president, highlighted working class themes: “Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.”

Still the event and speeches, with these touches and emphasis, spoke broadly to the nation about the economic challenges ahead and marked a sharp break with policies of the Bush administration and even a direct rebuke, as President Obama made particular reference to not sacrificing ideals for expediency in foreign policy. "We reject as false the choice as between our safety and our ideals," he said.

After the swearing-in Obama attended a traditional luncheon hosted by Congress, followed by a legislative session where several Cabinet appointments were approved. The huge outpouring of citizens from all over the country for the inaugural ceremony is sure to help hasten the approval of the president’s legislative agenda. According to press reports the first act of the new administration was to order a halt, pending further review, of all of former President Bush’s pending presidential regulations.

The inaugural parade extended into the afternoon, featuring a trade union float, representing the AFL-CIO, Change to Win and the teachers union, the first in many years at an inaugural. Over 200 workers marched and called for passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

The multicultural event, among many others, featured Irish musicians, a mariachi band, and a contingent of local Washingtonian youth playing local “go-go” music, a musical form particular to D.C.

President Obama's is to begin his day Wednesday with a prayer service followed by meetings with economic advisers and military leaders on Iraq and Afghanistan.

The president and first lady, in a promise to make government more accessible, are also to host a White House open house Wednesday.

Obama is also expected to act quickly to order the closing of the Guantanamo Bay military camp holding terror suspects, rescind Bush's ban on funding programs that support abortion and stem cell research.

"Congratulations on an extraordinary year of labor-led all-people's front organizing and fightback. The right-wing stranglehold on Congress has been broken. The elections are a stunning people's victory -- part of a hard-fought quarter-century battle to defend democracy."

Report by Joelle Fishman, Chair CPUSA Political Action Commission, to the Nov 18, 2006 meeting of the CPUSA National Committee

The article contains the text of the report, plus streaming MP3 audio and a link to download the audio of the whole speech.

The National Board of the Communist Party USA released the following appeal on Sept. 25:

The Nov. 7 midterm elections are less than six weeks away. The stakes have never been so high: Control of the House and Senate and governorships nationwide. A recent poll shows that 75 percent of voters are disgusted by the Republican majority House and Senate, the highest disapproval rate since 1994. They are frustrated at Bush’s endless Iraq war, by Republican cronyism and corruption, tax giveaways to the rich, cutbacks in vital services, and criminal negligence in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The pressure for troop withdrawal is growing, so much so that earlier this summer Democrats introduced two resolutions in the Senate. One, authored by Senator Kerry, envisions a short exit strategy and a role for the international community. The other, which has the support of nearly 40 Democratic senators and may be re-introduced this fall, calls for troop withdrawal beginning this winter, but the flaw is that it leaves the process open-ended, which is precisely what Bush does. Read the full article at People’s Weekly World Online

La Administración Bush y el Congreso controlado por los Republicanos han provocado la peor crisis institucional desde la Guerra Civil. ... Descaradamente se han colocado ellos mismos fuera de la ley. ...
• En Inglés
• Folleto PDF (bilingual)

The Bush Administration and the Republican controlled Congress have created our nation's worst Constitutional crisis since the Civil War... Brazenly, they have placed themselves above the law...
• Read the Spanish Version
• Download PDF Brochure (bi-lingual)

LOS ANGELES — Dubbed as the first comprehensive gathering of Latino leaders since the civil rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s, over 3,000 participants assembled here Sept. 6-10 at the National Latino Congreso.

A change in the composition of the congress will make it more possible to end the occupation in Iraq. That’s the political reality.

Today I will not discuss the next national initiatives of the peace movement, nor assess the tremendous 350,000-person national demonstration on April 29, 2006 organized to mobilize the majority peace sentiments toward the 2006 midterm elections. I also will not get into the details of the upcoming national peace conferences or the work to organize joint actions between the peace and immigrants rights movements...

There are 19 weeks until Election Day, Tuesday November 7.

Perhaps nothing underscores the significance of these mid-term elections more than the reality of 2500 killed and 18,000 maimed needlessly in Iraq, 100,000 Iraqi civilians lives lost.

This educational has the objective of upgrading our understanding of the struggle to defeat the ultra right and win control of Congress from the Republican Party in the 2006 elections. The goal is to place in bold relief the central questions of why and how clubs can contribute to achieving a 2006 electoral victory while growing the Party and YCL with the increased distribution of our press at the same time...

Here is a PowerPoint slideshow to accompany the article, Change Congress 2006! by Joelle Fishman, Chair of the Political Action Commission. This is a tool available for Party Districts, Clubs, members and friends to convey some of the facts, messages and important goals leading up to the November 2006 Mid-term elections.

Karl Rove, top Bush advisor now facing possible indictment, arrogantly declared the Republicans will use fear of terrorism once again to win the elections in 2006. It will be about the Republicans’ “post-9/11 worldview” versus the Democrats’ “pre-9/11 worldview” he said at the Republican National Committee...

The Bush-Cheney Administration has plunged our nation into the worst Constitutional crisis since the Civil War. The abuses of power they have committed are legion: an illegal pre-emptive war, lying to Congress and the people, warrant-less spying, mass incarceration of innocent people here and around the world, torture, corrupt no-bid contracts with crony corporations like Halliburton, criminal negligence in abandoning the victims of Hurricane Katrina...

Never in my lifetime have I participated in an election in which the stakes were so high, the opposing sides so clearly defined, the forms and methods of struggle so creative and wide-ranging, and the battle so bitterly contested and so consequential to the lives of billions on our planet. The results weren’t what we had hoped for, but we should be immensely proud that we were engaged and tireless participants in this monumental struggle.

The CPUSA National Committee meeting opening report by Sam Webb, National Chair. Listen to streaming Audio MP3.

Our banner for 2004 was “Build Unity – Defeat Bush and the Ultra-Right.” Our method was an all-out effort with the broad labor-led democratic front against extreme right-wing reaction; and within that all-out for a bigger, stronger Communist Party and YCL.

If you turned on the TV on November 3rd CNN mentioned to you that young people showed up at the polls but it was nothing too impressive. They told you that while the numbers went up, so did all voter-turnout numbers and there was no significant shift or big change in how many young folks showed up as compared to the rest of the population. Some of them even went so far as to blame the youth for not turning out enough to impact the elections favorably for Kerry. But the numbers tell another story.

After a hard-fought battle, Minnesota voters gave their state to John Kerry, but they also reshaped the balance of power in the state Capitol by trouncing a score of Republican state legislators.

Editorial

This is a deeply divided country. Out of some 114 million votes, George W. Bush garnered just over 3 million more than John Kerry. Bush will claim a mandate for his extremist agenda. Hell, he claimed a mandate when he grabbed the White House in 2000 by one Supreme Court justice vote. But the reality is at least half the country is against him.

WASHINGTON — Bruised but unbowed by labor’s failure to oust George W. Bush in the Nov. 2 election, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told a news conference here that the movement will “fight like hell” to stop Bush’s ultra-right agenda in his second term. click here for Spanish text